Directors are often tempted to fast-forward William Shakespeare’s works into modern times. The trap is that, because his words and ideas are so timeless, they need no 21st-century costumes or ripped-from-the-headlines settings to liven them up. The freshly scrubbed presentation becomes a distraction from rather than an aid to understanding what Shakespeare is really saying.

That’s more of a problem with his dramas than his comedies. The lighter plays tend to be so amiably preposterous that no amount of jarring updating can screw around with the audience’s perceptions of time and space any more than Shakespeare’s script already does. So when director Jason Jacobs decided to put the season-ending Vermont Stage production of “As You Like It” into a modern prism, complete with references to gaudy pro wrestling and campy pop songs, he was able to step away carefully from the pitfalls that can easily do in, say, an “Othello” set in the war in Afghanistan, and come out on the other side with a risky but mostly fulfilling production.

Jacobs’ treatment of Shakespeare’s comedy about gender confusion and mistaken identity (wait, isn’t that every Shakespearean comedy?) is innovative and daring, but that doesn’t mean it always works. A slow start and a sputtering conclusion sandwich a delightful middle, sort of like an Oreo that crumbles too easily.

“As You Like It” starts sluggishly in part because the set is so minimal, mostly consisting of stacks of luggage and a couple of ramps that fill in as stumps to speak from and beds to lie upon. Dour characters don bowler hats and raincoats for reasons that aren’t immediately apparent, providing some of that maddening distraction in modernized Shakespearean productions. The sparse presentation comes off as an attempt to let the viewer use his or her imagination, yet shows little inspiration of its own.

Things improve once Jacobs, whose work for Vermont Stage includes the top-flight productions “Opus” and “Oliver Twist,” finally lets his imagination kick in. He brightens a scene in which the play’s main man, Orlando (played by Lowell Byers), wrestles a thug (recent University of Vermont graduate Orion Lay-Sleeper) who cavorts in a colorful Mexican “lucha libre” mask. Jacobs’ use of flickering lights and a sound resembling the plucking of Cupid’s bow to illustrate when Orlando falls in love with Rosalind (MJ Brackin) and other characters fall in love with other characters could be excessive — Shakespeare does a pretty good job on his own of indicating when characters are mutually gaga — but the paucity of ambient sound and effects before then made the potentially over-the-top maneuver a fun reward for the senses.

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It’s also a little confusing to have only seven actors take on 16 roles in “As You Like It.” One character (one of a trio played deftly by Chris Caswell) notes that “one man in his time plays many parts,” and though it’s a reference to the many stages a person goes through in life it taps into one of the play’s themes — the many identities we’re all capable of — that Jacobs happily fleshes out.

The gender playfulness of “As You Like It” — Rosalind takes on a man’s identity after she’s banished into the woods by her mean uncle, Duke Frederick — is also played to the max here. Jacobs casts a bearded man, Patrick Clow (who also plays Duke Frederick and his nicer brother, Duke Senior) as a woman who’s courted by a typically goofy Shakespearean court-jester type, played to Joker-like heights by Jordan Gullikson, who also portrays Orlando’s cranky brother, Oliver.

So, yeah, there’s a lot going on here.

All those moving parts create confusion but also strong energy that starts to fizzle when “As You Like It” winds down to its inevitable and improbable happy ending. Jacobs even tosses in a fanciful but silly scene centered on a forgettable ‘70s pop song, which feels like a way to bring a play to a close when there’s no other clear way to do it.

The cast maintains a high level throughout, especially the strong work turned in by continually reliable, versatile local actors such as Gullikson and Caswell and the luminous performance by Brackin as the spunky Rosalind. This is an actress who fully understands the intent of Shakespeare’s words and knows how to deliver them, and her joyous scenes with her cousin and best friend, Celia (Catherine Domareki), are the best parts of the play. Flaws abound, but this production of “As You Like It” has a lot to like about it.